


close the door and dim the lights

by Laylah



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society, Community: homesmut, Community: kink_bingo, M/M, Non-Stigmatized Sex Work, Tentabulges, The Self-Esteems, rent boy AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-10
Updated: 2013-04-10
Packaged: 2017-12-08 02:26:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/755914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not a glamorous job, but you can set your own hours, the pay rate is good now that you know what you're doing, and it leaves you with enough free time to enjoy your hobbies. You like to think you're doing pretty well for yourself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	close the door and dim the lights

**Author's Note:**

> For a prompt aimed straight at one of my weaknesses on the kink meme, and also for Kink Bingo's April mini-challenge. aw yee, doubleteaming requests.

_meet me in the red room, close the door and dim the lights_  
 _i will be yours truly if indeed the price is right_  
—Amiel, "meet me in the red room"

Your work phone rings at godawful early in the afternoon. You sort of expected it, though. You just ran an ad in the back of the city weekly again, since some of your regulars haven't been calling lately, and that always means you get a spike of extra work. You fumble for the phone and flip it open.

"Hello," you purr into the mouthpiece. Or you try to, anyway. You're still a little sleep-hoarse, but you think you sound okay.

"Hey," a male voice says on the other end. "Is this Luccio?"

"That's me," you rumble. "You looking for someone, to keep you company?"

"Not me. My little brother." The caller doesn't have the local accent that seems to be common here—instead his voice has the plain cadence used on national news programs. That's usually a good sign, means he's more likely to be serious instead of calling you on a dare or just to be a pain in the ass.

You squirm your way half out of your recuperacoon, enough to wake up your husktop and tab over to your calendar. "How old is he?" Humans are really particular about age, you've discovered.

"Eighteen, no worries," the caller says. "He's legal, he's clean, and he's even pretty cute."

You roll your eyes, since the caller can't see you do it. "Sounds like, a real treat," you say. "So, the basics, are somewhat like this: humans only, your location only, inside city limits. Two hundred dollars, for travel, and the first hour, full service, and extra hours, are a hundred dollars each. If you want to get involved, and not just your brother, that's another fifty, per hour."

The guy whistles. "First class service, at those rates."

"You get, what you pay for," you say. It's your standard answer. You charged less when you first started, but you've discovered that you tend to get treated better by clients who pay more for your time.

"Fair enough," the guy says. It's always nice when they don't want to haggle. You've hung up on a couple of guys who wouldn't stop trying to bargain their way down. You like to think you've learned your lesson about letting people talk you into things that are bad for you. "Only the best for my bro. Is it too late to book an appointment for a couple hours on Saturday night?"

Of course. They always want you to work when you have things you want to be doing. "What time, Saturday night?"

For a second the guy hesitates. "Is midnight too late to start?"

That would mean you'd be done at two in the morning. The human-run transit systems would have stopped already, so you'd probably need to take a cab home. On the other hand, it means you won't have to miss the Fiduspawn Moon tournament earlier that night, which you really wanted to be around for. "I can, do that," you say. "Two hours is, three hundred dollars if it's just him, or four hundred for both of you."

"As much as I would love to take that deal for the bargain it is, I'm pretty sure the kid wouldn't go for it. So just him. At least this time."

He gives you his address, which you type into your calendar, and you remind him that you'll need cash at the door before you come into his apartment. He's entirely reasonable about the whole thing, so either he's one of the good ones or he wants to kill you. Probably the first thing, though. When you hang up the phone you feel pretty good about the job.

Your name is Tavros Nitram, and you make your living by having sex with aliens. It's not a glamorous job, but you can set your own hours, the pay rate is good now that you know what you're doing, and it leaves you with enough free time to enjoy your hobbies. You have a small hivesuite of your own in a majority-human city, a subscription to (and highly ranked character in) Fiduspawn Moon, and a pretty nice mostly-online social life. You have two hours of work on Saturday night that will pay for your groceries, phone, and internet for the next month. You like to think you're doing pretty well for yourself.

*

When you show up to work on Saturday night you're in a pretty good mood. The tournament was a lot of fun, and you and Aradia kicked butt during the pairs' treasure gathering mission. The weather's nice and your client doesn't live all that far away—you could probably jog home if you want to. One of the good things about living in a human city is that even lowbloods are pretty safe going places alone. You're durable, you have built-in weapons, and you're a lot more comfortable in the dark than humans are.

You get buzzed in at the street door with no problem, and take the elevator right up to the top floor. Everything feels like it's not quite big enough in human buildings, built to suit a species that thinks your height is perfectly respectable instead of kind of runty. This building, as far as you can tell, is pretty new, and it seems to be in good condition. Probably that means that hiring you wasn't too much of an unusual luxury—or, well, even if these guys don't normally hire people in your line of work, that they are at least comfortable enough to spend money on fun things pretty often.

The apartment you're looking for has loud music playing, but it stops when you knock. Male voices trade a few words, bolts snap back, and the door opens. "Luccio?" says the guy at the door. He's tall for a human and broad-shouldered, filling out his white polo shirt pretty well. He's wearing a baseball cap and a pair of pointy-angled sunglasses, even though he's inside in the middle of the night and humans are almost never that light-sensitive.

"Hi," you say. "You had an appointment?"

He slips you some cash—two crisp hundreds and five twenties, which you think might be a sort of courtesy, like he knows it's a pain to break a hundred sometimes. "Yo, Dave, it's for you."

"Oh my god, bro," you hear as you pocket your pay, "you did _not_ actually hire me a callgirl."

"Dude, come on, I know you better than that," your client says, which you hope is the truth, because otherwise this is going to get awkward. At least you get paid up front. "Come on in."

You twist sideways just enough to be sure your horns won't bang the doorframe and step into the apartment. It's a mess, bright posters and intimidating amounts of electronics and weird-looking stuffed animals strewn everywhere. The little brother, Dave, gets up from the couch and looks at you. Probably looks at you. He has sunglasses on too.

"Holy shit," he says.

The part about him being cute was true. He's not quite as big as his brother but you can see the resemblance, the line of his jaw, the shape of his nose. He holds himself in this really alert stance that makes you think of birds perching, ready to fly away any second. His skin is some of the palest you've ever seen, which means it's easy to see how hard he's blushing.

"Seriously, bro, are you fucking with me."

You look from Dave to his bro, who's just watching with his arms folded and his face blank, and then back to Dave again. "I'm real," you say, "and I can be here, for the next two hours, so, even if he meant it as a joke, it doesn't have to be one, if there are things, you want me to do with you."

Dave swallows hard enough that you can see his throat working. "Okay," he says. "Cool."

This whole scene feels weirdly trollish, enough to make your nape prickle a little. You don't work for troll clients for _reasons_ , and one of those reasons is that you don't like getting in the middle of strangers' quadrant drama. And this? This feels way too much like being a gift from a highblood to his lowblood moirail.

"If you're not interested, though, that's also okay, and I could just," you crane your head to look at the tv screen, "leave you to your video game."

"Nah, I am totally down for the freaknasty alien adventure of a lifetime," Dave says, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his shoulders braced. "Just a little surprised my bro would condone puppet-free shenanigans under his roof."

"I'm sure Li'l Cal would be happy to sit in, if you're worried."

" _No_ ," Dave says, his alarm sharp enough that you can smell it. "Not necessary, dude." He reaches for you. "Come on, man, don't want to hang around and give Bro more ideas. Hey, what do I call you, anyway?"

"Luccio," you say as you follow him down a short, dark hallway and then duck into a bedroom. It's dark in there, too, and he doesn't turn on the overhead light, just a little lamp on his desk. The dim light is comfortable, and you like the warm, complicated smell of safe retreat. "It's really okay, you know," you say, now that you're not performing for his bro anymore. "If you don't want to, I mean."

"Dude, chill, it's cool," Dave says. "I am _totally_ into this." He takes a step closer to you, putting his hands on your waist, and you can smell how nervous he is. "Uh. Do you kiss when you're working?"

You don't usually. A lot of your clients don't even ask. But Dave seems more vulnerable than a lot of them, behind the shades and the detached posturing. Your nook gives a sympathetic throb.

Wow, no, you really need to hang onto your professionalism. "Usually, I don't," you say. It's hard to read him with his eyes hidden. You touch the frame of his shades. "Can you, take these off?"

His mouth crooks in a tiny smile. "Usually I don't," he says.

You laugh. "Okay, I guess, that serves me right," you say. You reach for the snaps on your shirt, popping them open all the way down the shoulder seam. "Maybe, I can find some way, to make it up to you?"

"Wow, sure, yeah, let's just dive straight off the deep end right into porno territory, next rest stop in a hundred and seventy miles, hope you didn't need to grab some snacks or take a piss before we get on the road, cause we're gonna be traveling at unsafe speeds here. Next stop, alien sex paradise."

You haven't even taken your shirt off yet. It's just hanging open, draping off one shoulder. "I used to get really nervous, also," you say. "It's okay."

Dave sputters. "What, dude, no, there are no nerves anywhere in the vicinity. You are talking to a man of steel here, I—" You shrug your shirt off the other shoulder and let it fall. "Fuck."

"You can touch me, if you want to," you say.

"Isn't this weird for you?" he asks. "Selling your body to desperate failures with an alien fetish?"

"Well," you say, "there are, a couple of assumptions in that question, that, I don't think, I quite agree with. I still belong to myself, even when I am working, and it's not like, I would have to agree, to anything that made me uncomfortable." You shrug. Once or twice early on you made the mistake of pointing out that you were just doing a job, and that never went well. "I like meeting people, and usually, I get to do things that are fun for me, too. Especially, when I'm with somebody who's close to my age, and, really cute."

"Okay, now you're just trying to make me feel better," Dave says, but it looks like he's fighting back a smile.

You grin. "Is it working?"

"Maybe," Dave says. He slides one hand up your side carefully, licking his lips in this quick, nervous motion.

"Feels really different, huh," you prompt. Almost all of your clients want to pay attention to that, the way that your skin has a different texture from theirs.

Dave nods. His fingers trace your grubleg scar on that side, so slow and careful that it removes any remaining trace of doubt: he's never done this before, definitely not with a troll, maybe not with anyone. Your nook throbs again and you try to tell your body to cut that out. Just because he's cute and nervous and inexperienced, that's no reason for you to start having inappropriate feelings. The clients don't want to think about it being a job, but you can't afford to forget it.

You make a soft, pleased noise anyway, and it makes his breath hitch. His fingers keep moving up, over your shoulder, up the side of your neck. You tilt your head to press your horn into his hand. "Nice set of handlebars you got here," he says. "People ever grab on there and hang on when you're giving head?"

"Is that, what you fantasize about?" you ask softly. "Having, a troll's head between your legs, while you have him, by the horns?" The sharp hot musk of his arousal spikes in the air, and you consider that question answered. You lick your lips, slowly.

"I could do that with you," he says, and he sounds uncertain, like it's half a question, so you nod.

Two hours with a young client pretty much always means getting him off more than once, and if you can get him to do it in your mouth the first time your nook is that much less likely to get sore. You sink to your knees, keeping your eyes locked on his shades the whole time. "Yeah?"

"Oh my god," he whispers.

His hands move so fast they're a blur and the fabric of his jeans snaps audibly as he pulls them open. His cock is a pretty good size, big enough that he shouldn't be an insecure jerk about it, not so big that it'll be really uncomfortable. You lick it, from the root up to the crown, then tease the slit with the tip of your tongue. He chokes down a whine, and you grin.

"You might, want to hold on," you say as you look up at him one last time. "This ride, is cleared for takeoff."

Dave laughs a little bit, and the sound falters when you take his cock in your mouth. He fumbles for a grip on your horns, and then he doesn't do anything more than hold on. You can feel the warmth of his palms.

You move into a practiced rhythm, your hands on the backs of his thighs for balance as you suck his cock. He starts talking again but you aren't really listening—it's nervous babble again, crazy metaphors, sprawling sentences that trip over themselves as he tries to pretend he's not overwhelmed. If you listen too hard you'll want to hug him, take care of him, do all this unprofessional stuff like fawn over him and also have sex like you would with a quadrantmate instead of a client. Your sheath already feels a little too tight. You block out the words as best you can and just focus on his cock.

You push down until you have the whole thing in your mouth and you're nuzzling the coarse curls of his pubic hair. When you swallow, your throat working around the head of his cock, his grip gets tighter and his thighs tremble in your hands. You stay there, working him in short strokes that pull up barely an inch and then take him back down to swallow again. This is apparently a technique that humans have to train themselves into, but it's easy for trolls, so it's almost like a cheat code to impress clients, like the way that you can't carry any of their diseases so you don't have to use barriers. Dave's pretty much just gasping and swearing after you've gotten your rhythm going there, and you keep it up. You're good at this. You're such a pro.

He makes the cutest noise when he comes, almost a yelp, like it took him by surprise. His cock pulses in your mouth and you feel the tingling heat of his come splashing the back of your throat. You keep swallowing, milking it out of him, until he remembers he's got you by the handlebars and pushes you away. "Fuck," he says as his cock slips out of your mouth. "Oh, fuck."

You're purring. Whoops. You cough a little to cover it and look up at him with a smile. "I'll take that, as a compliment."

Dave laughs, this sort of nervous sound like he's still freaking out a little. "Dude, you can take it as an _endorsement_. Grade A, first-class cocksucking, ten out of ten, would absolutely recommend."

When you shift your weight to get your feet under you, he offers a hand to help you up. "Thanks," you say. "You're sweet."

"I am not," he says, ducking his head like he's embarrassed. This does nothing to change your opinion. Then he clears his throat awkwardly. "So, uh. Have I used up my shot, then?"

"Only if, you think you're too tired, to have a second round, in a little while." When you said your clients get what they pay for, you weren't just talking yourself up. You get repeat customers because you take your job seriously. "The two hours, that I mentioned previously, have not come anywhere close to elapsing."

"Cool," Dave says. "That's... cool." He hasn't let go of your hand. "So, if I maybe wanted a little show to get me excited for the sequel...?"

You nod. "That definitely sounds like a thing, that could be made to happen." You kick your shoes off and take a step back to get a little distance between you. "Did you have anything, particular, in mind?"

He shrugs, quick and jerky. "Lemme see you touch yourself?"

You slide one hand down your torso, taking your time, letting him watch you get comfortable. You unzip your jeans, hook your thumbs in the waistband of your boxers, and skin out of everything at once. All those times you practiced this in front of your respiteblock mirror are totally worth it, since now you feel fairly confident in your ability to get undressed in a sexy manner in front of people. Confidence is one of the most important skills in your line of work.

"You want me, in your bed?" you ask, your hand splayed over the sheath of your bulge, fingertips resting just at the very front edge of your seedflap.

"Hell yes," Dave breathes. "Hell fucking yes."

You grin. That kind of enthusiasm is always flattering. You climb onto his bed—which has quadrant symbols printed on the sheets, and you wonder just how much Dave has been thinking about sex with trolls—and spread yourself out on your back. He settles at the foot of the bed, between your legs, and licks his lips again. You sort of hope he's not going to ask if he can go down on you.

He doesn't, though. He just watches, with his lips parted and his cheeks turning pink again, as you reach down between your legs and stroke your nook slowly. You're wet enough that this should go pretty easily. Actually, if anything, you need to worry about not getting yourself any more worked up than you already are, or your bulge is going to unsheathe, and no matter how much interspecies porn he's watched you're pretty sure he's not looking for that. You've yet to meet a male client who was.

When you slide two fingers up your nook you moan, breathy and showy, and you think you sound too much like you're doing porn but it always seems to work. You rock your hips and your junk makes little squelching noises as you move. Your eyes are half-shut, but you're watching him enough to see it when his cock twitches. He'll be ready for more soon.

"Dave," you sigh as you work your fingers in your nook, "mmn, it's going to feel good to have you in me." Really, it's a pretty standard script, but why mess with what works? Anyone who would hire you is somebody who wants to feel wanted.

"Oh my god," he whispers. This is getting sort of tricky, actually, trying to act like you're really into him without paying him enough attention that you pity him in obvious, which is to say physical, ways. "Oh my god, Luccio."

Well, that helps some. He doesn't know you. He's not part of your life. He's just a client, even if he's a nice one.

You keep up the act, moaning for him, fingering your nook and squirming. You can do this. Dave is starting to touch himself now, coaxing his cock stiff again. He should be ready for his second time soon.

As soon as it looks like he's hard enough to stick it in you, you switch from moaning to begging. "Please, Dave," you say. "Please, I want you, want your cock, want you to fuck me, I can't, can't get deep enough," and you could probably recite all of this stuff in your sleep, honestly, but you make it sound pretty sincere and it works.

"Jesus, yes," Dave says. He strips his shirt off and tosses it off the bed, fumbling with his sunglasses to keep them in place, and then hesitates again as he leans down above you. "Like this is okay?"

"Unless you want me, somewhere else," you say. "Which would also be, just fine, since, I'm here to take care of you."

He smiles for about half a second. "I'm cool with this," he says. "It's like missionary except gay and with an alien. That's a pretty respectable level of what the fuck."

"Is it really gay, though, with an alien?" you ask. "I mean, it seems like the category, shouldn't really, um, never mind, sorry."

Dave laughs, though, and leans in for a second like he might kiss you, before he catches himself and presses his lips to your collarbone instead. "Nerd," he says.

You raise your knees as he settles between them. "I admit, I have been called that, once or twice, yeah."

It's okay to like your clients. When you have regulars, it's honestly better if you like them a little—otherwise you have trouble showing up to repeat appointments, after all. If you can just think of Dave as a guy you would probably be friends with, that should be fine, right?

The head of his cock slides against the folds of your nook and you reach down to guide him in. When he first pushes it into you it does hurt a little—it always does, no matter how much you try to relax. You're just not built to take something that shape. But you have enough practice to keep quiet until you're used to it.

And honestly Dave is probably not paying attention to anything above your waist right now anyway. He's trembling between your thighs, his breath audible and shaky, and he's barely moving. You're not sure he's even all the way in you. Your heart aches with sympathy for his nervousness, his bluffing, his need to act like he's cool and jaded in the face of something he wants—

You make yourself think about Fiduspawn stats really hard, which you like but not at all in that way. By the time you've gone through all the stats of your current battle lineup, you've calmed down and your bulge has relaxed a little.

Then Dave starts to thrust inside you, and you croon at him. "Fuck, this is—Jesus, how are you so fucking tight," he says. "Ugh, don't listen to me, I sound so completely lame right now."

"It's okay," you say. "I am certainly not going to judge you, for saying complimentary things to me." You wrap your arms around him, your hands on his back, and then you find the rough lines of scar tissue there. Not just a single scar, and not a small one—he's taken enough damage for a troll, and you know humans aren't built that tough. What _happened_ to him? You trill at him without meaning to, the fluting sympathetic sound that you ought to be saving for your pitymates.

And it makes Dave sob, makes him cling to you hard. "Yes," he breathes against your throat, "fuck, yes, more of that."

You trill again, rubbing your cheek against his as he rocks on top of you, as his breathing turns loud and ragged, as he starts doing the human version of vulnerable, needy vocalizations. You can't even think straight enough to redirect yourself to Fiduspawn. You shouldn't be this worked up, you're doing a _job_ , this isn't supposed to be about what you want, but you just want to hold him and soothe him and take care of him, and your nook is rippling around his cock as if he could fill a pail with you.

You run your claws down his back, gentle as you can, and he shivers in your arms, this wracking, full-body motion that breaks the last of your self-control. Your bulge unsheathes in one wrenching, reflexive twist, coiling wet and needy between your stomach and his—and Dave comes, his cock pulsing, spilling hot fluid in your nook.

He rests his forehead on your shoulder, panting, clinging to you, clearly not ready to move. You keep one arm around him and reach down with the other hand to just hold your bulge still, because you have totally lost control of it and you're going to embarrass yourself even if you don't gross him out.

"Goddamn, dude," he says eventually. "You really don't do this shit halfway, huh? Two hour alien sex tour and we're going to hit every major attraction it's physically possible to reach within that time." He sits up, and his cock slides out of your nook but he stays right there between your legs, his hands on your thighs. "Pack your sunblock, your protective gear, and a phrasebook that'll tell you how to beg for mercy."

"I can't tell if that is a complaint, or an expression of satisfaction," you admit.

"The second one." Dave touches the back of your hand, curls his fingers around your wrist, tugs gently—not like he's really pulling your hand away from your bulge, just like he's asking you to do it yourself. You do it. "So. Next stop?"

You swallow hard as your bulge curls restlessly, searching for something to sink into. "If you want to, do anything that involves my bulge, I should warn you, this will get a _lot_ messier."

Dave takes off his sunglasses. It's either an offer or a challenge, or maybe both. His eyes are rich human-blood red. "I'm okay with that."

You've completely lost your professional detachment at some point in the last hour. But you look at the way Dave looks at you, and you're okay with that, too.


End file.
